Salt and Silver at the Tate Britain

We headed over to the Tate Britain yesterday to check out their exhibition ‘Salt and Silver: Early Photography 1840 – 1860’ a look into the early photographic process of using light sensitive paper coated in silver salts to create photographic prints.

The overall exhibition was very interesting, getting to see images that were taken so long ago and look so much better than the photoshopped to death photographs that we see now.

Studio of Matthew Brady, Landing supplies on the James river Virginia,

We want to know what the guy lying on the white pile in the bottom just of centre left is doing.

William Fox Talbot, Scene in a Paris street, 1843

Finally a classic photographer and a classic photograph.

Although it was a great exhibition the focus on Talbot’s ‘creation’ of the photograph was a niggling issue that we couldn’t shake off. Above is ‘View from the Window at Le Gras’ by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, thought to be the earliest surviving photographic print made in 1825. We understand the exhibition is about the salt and silver process, but we think that this photograph should have been mentioned.